‘Listen,’ Zoe perched on the edge of the sofa not far from Ellie’s feet and passed the cup. ‘I am sorry about yesterday. I didn’t mean to upset you with all that talk about Dad. I just wanted to make you see that he’s not a monster and it would be good for you to have him around, you know, especially now.’
The reality of why she was here at her sister’s came crashing back down and she was forced to think about everything again. She sipped at her coffee for something to do, it tasted bitter.
‘You know that I will always be here for you and that I will do everything I can to make things okay, but just don’t forget about Dad. I know he misses having you around and I miss having my family. It’s bad enough Mum not being here, but having to see you and Dad separately all the time drives me crazy. We should be sticking together, not pushing each other away. It makes it really hard on me – I hate having to choose all the time.’
‘I’m not asking you to choose.’
‘You kind of are, Ellie. You two not being able to be in the same room together without creating tension means I have to split myself. It’s not fair on me. Plus I know Dad would want to be involved with you having a baby – he’d love to have a grandchild!’
Ellie shook her head. ‘Let’s not get too carried away.’
Zoe huffed. ‘Honesty, it’s like talking to a brick wall sometimes.’
Ellie shrugged, reverting to acting like a child. Sometimes when she and Zoe were together she found herself behaving as she would’ve done at eleven years old, having her annoying fourteen-year-old sister around.
‘How comes you slept on the sofa and not in the spare room?’ Zoe peered at her over her coffee cup.
Ellie avoided eye contact. ‘I was watching a film and I must’ve fallen asleep.’
‘Fair enough. So, I’ve been thinking. We need to sort a plan out so that we know what we are doing and how we are going to do it. First things first, you need to tell Chris.’
Ellie groaned and dropped her head back so that it rested on the back of the sofa. ‘Not this again.’
‘Come on, you owe it to him to tell him. What have you got to lose?’
‘Err, let me think. My best friend, my job, my freedom… my sanity!’ She listed them on her free hand, one finger at a time.
‘Oh you’re such a drama queen. You will not lose your sanity and the rest we can sort out. You can’t just hide away at my place and pretend nothing is happening. You need to go and see a doctor, get the ball rolling with a midwife, put things in place ready for when the baby comes…’
Ellie felt her chest tighten listening to all this talk about the baby. ‘Look, I haven’t even decided what I am going to do yet. There’s no point in involving Chris in this until I know what I am doing.’
‘What you are doing? Ellie, you’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’ Zoe eyed her suspiciously and Ellie had to turn away again.
‘I don’t know what I am going to do. I need time to think. It’s all happening too fast and I’ve got work appointments next week to sort out and I need to do a new order for this film I am doing next month and –’
‘Ellie, I am afraid that’s life. When shit gets thrown at you, you have to suck it up and deal with it. Not brush it under the carpet and hope that it will go away. And this definitely won’t go away; this will become more and more prominent in your life, so you need to work out what you are doing. I will help you. You don’t have to go through this alone, but you do have to tell Chris.’
She knew she had to tell Chris, but she was so scared of losing him. ‘Zoe, what happened between me and Chris – it was a mistake. A huge mistake that should never have happened.’ And it shouldn’t have happened all the other times too. What was she thinking? Nobody can have a sexual relationship without the possibility of it getting complicated. She wished she had learnt this lesson before she got pregnant.
‘But it did!’
‘Don’t I bloody know it!’
There was a long pause, where both girls didn’t know what to say next. Ellie thumbed the mug and stared down into the shiny brown liquid. She knew her sister would be like this. Maybe, subconsciously, that’s why she came up here. She needed her sister to take control of the situation and tell her what she needed to do. This is exactly what she did when their mum died. She pulled Ellie back onto the straight and narrow and yet here she was again, nearly ten years later, and asking her sister to do the same. Would she ever learn? The thought of her being such a burden weighed down in her stomach and she felt guilty. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, taking another sip of coffee.
‘What are you sorry for?’ Zoe had now leant back and had her feet up on the coffee table, her long legs bare, with just a small pair of bed shorts on.
‘For always being such a mess. For always relying on you to pick up the pieces when I make a mistake… for being a crap sister.’
‘Don’t be silly, you aren’t a crap sister.’
‘I bloody feel like one. It’s never the other way around, is it? It’s never you coming to me and needing help to sort your life out. You’re so confident and clever and… just… Zoe. You never make mistakes; you never do anything wrong.’ Zoe looked away from Ellie and seemed a little uncomfortable. She was playing with her cup and looked awkward. ‘What’s wrong?’ Ellie asked, eyeing her sister suspiciously.
‘Nothing.’ She didn’t look at her.
‘Well, it doesn’t look like nothing.’ Ellie nudged her with her foot from under the cover.
‘Ellie, everyone makes mistakes. Even me.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? You’re Little Miss Perfect, you don’t make mistakes. Everything seems to fall into your lap and you make things happen.’
Zoe turned her head to look at Ellie, her expression more serious than she had been for ages. ‘Everything doesn’t just fall into my lap. I work bloody hard for everything that I have.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just saying, some people are really lucky in life and others, well, others seem to get all the bad luck. Like me.’
‘I get bad luck too. I have my moments of weakness and I do things wrong. It’s not what happens to you in life; it’s how you deal with things. That’s the difference.’
Ellie eyed her suspiciously. Zoe looked uncomfortable, sad. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
‘What do you mean?’ The colour had drained out a little from her face.
‘You’re not telling me something. Why do you keep saying how you aren’t perfect, how you get things wrong?’ She paused, but didn’t drop her gaze. Zoe, however, wouldn’t look at her. ‘Zoe? What aren’t you telling me?’ she pressed.
Zoe exhaled and shuffled in her seat, turning round to face Ellie front-on. ‘Listen, I don’t want you to get rid of the baby. I think you will regret it for the rest of your life.’ She looked away. ‘I did.’
Ellie felt her stomach flip. The air suddenly became tight and she felt her throat close slightly with anxiety. ‘What do you mean, ‘you did’?’
‘Ellie, things happen in life that you can’t control and sometimes you have to make a decision based on what you can control.’
‘I don’t understand.’ She kind of understood, but she didn’t want to.
‘I have been pregnant before.’ The silence in the air that followed this revelation was both uncomfortable and strange. Zoe looked back up at her. ‘I didn’t have a choice. It was a volatile relationship and I had got myself into a situation I